Samurai Flamenco (Nightbreed) - Gifts & Curses [10] [Gotoyoshi]

[scriveyner]

Title: gifts & curses [10]
Fandom: Samurai Flamenco
AU: Nightbreed
Characters/Pairing: Gotou/Masayoshi, Keiko, Masanori
Rating: T
Length: 1145
Summary: Gotou sat on the back porch of the house and used the hose to spray off.



Gotou sat on the back porch of the house and used the hose to spray off. The sun hadn't risen yet, the eastern skies were just starting to turn pink, fog rolling in from down the mountains. “Cold!” Masayoshi yelped when Gotou turned the hose on him – there was mud tracked up his arms and legs and clumped in his hair, he looked more like a mud puddle than a man.

“Hold still,” Gotou said as Masayoshi danced out of the way of the hose's spray, shaking clods of mud off in the grass. “Oi! Masayoshi!”

“Don't you dare spray me again, that's like ice!”

“No shit.” Gotou aimed the nozzle at Masayoshi again and watched him dash in the other direction. “Get over here, you're going to track mud inside and then complain about cleaning up after yourself.”

Masayoshi stopped just outside of the range of the hose, muddy hands on his hips and a big grin on his face. Gotou could map that expression onto the wolf with no problem – ears and tail up, tongue lolling out, very tip of his tail twitching – play with me. Gotou sighed, a long exaggerated motion – then very quickly put his thumb over the tap and deliberately sprayed Masayoshi almost full in the face with the cold water.

The noise Masayoshi made as he sputtered sent Gotou into a fit of laughter, leaning his naked shoulder against the wooden support pillar, one of many that lined the back porch. He should be equally as cold – drenched in the chilly autumn morning – but the blood was still boiling in his veins from the night, the moonsong still heavy in his chest. “Idiot,” he said as Masayoshi finally stepped forward, dripping and still streaked with mud, the murky morning light catching on the silver of the chain he wore. He handed the hose to Masayoshi and watched him rinse off, should have expected to have it turned against him and all the same wasn't prepared by the additional shock of cold water, the sunlight glittering in Masayoshi's eyes.

How they ended up in the mud together was anybody's guess, but Gotou cupped Masayoshi's face, alternating between kissing him and laughing, and Masayoshi took a handful of mud and smeared it on Gotou's face, the pink tip of his tongue visible between his lips as he concentrated on his task.

Gotou caught his hands, twined his fingers with Masayoshi's, pushing his arms back into the mud and looming over him. Masayoshi grinned up at him, eyes squinted almost closed – then he opened them and looked up at Gotou with a serious expression. Gotou patiently waited and Masayoshi said, in all seriousness, “We need to turn off the tap, we're wasting water.”

Gotou leaned forward and nuzzled Masayoshi's nose. “Never change,” he said softly, smiling despite himself.

#

Gotou woke with a start, head banging against the glass he was leaning into. He blinked his eyes, staring out at the darkness beyond the pane, and then almost dropped his cell phone, dangling loose in his fingers. He rescued it and held it tight to his chest as the fragments of his dream-memory slid through his fingers.

He looked at the phone, touched the screen to wake it, looking for notification, a missed call – but saw nothing. There was no need for him to be concerned, he knew that Masayoshi was more than capable of taking care of himself, but … a lot could change in four years. Things were different in the city.

There were werewolf hunters.

Gotou glanced forward – the train car was less empty – and he tapped the call icon on his phone. He would just feel the slightest bit better if he had a chance to talk to Masayoshi again.

The phone rang against his ear.

#

Keiko was wearing shorts and a tank top and a big floppy hat, standing in the back yard with a watering can. Masayoshi sat on the porch with his legs crossed and shouted enthusiastic instructions which Keiko dutifully ignored as she watered the small garden that she and Masanori had helped plant earlier in the season.

“It's just watering,” Gotou said, sitting up in one of the chairs they kept on the back porch, a folder open on his lap as he read about a long-cold missing persons case he'd dug out of a dusty file somewhere in the koban.

“You should leave your work at work,” Masayoshi said, and tugged on the hem of Gotou's shorts with two fingers. “It's Sunday, we're meant to spend time with the kids.”

“Mm,” Gotou said, and looked up, just in time to see Keiko wing the watering can at a bunch of crows that had landed in the crops. “Don't taunt the birds, Keiko,” Gotou called, and Keiko very elegantly flipped him the bird before shifting in broad daylight and scattering the birds like tenpins.

Masayoshi's brow furrowed, and he stood up. “That's not very nice,” he said, and Gotou returned his attention to his file folder.

“Leave her be, she'll learn,” he said, as the grey wolf shot past them both, up the porch and into the house, dive-bombed by angry corvids. “See?”

“I hate crows!” Keiko yelled from somewhere in the house, and Masayoshi sighed, stepping off the porch to retrieve the remnants of her shredded clothes.

#

The silence on the street corner was broken by the sad sound of Masayoshi's phone vibrating, face-down amid the shards of broken glass from its screen. Keiko didn't glance at it, didn't even seem to hear it, eyes wide and locked on the scene before her.

The large brown wolf lifted its head slowly, the lifeless body of the white wolf dropping to the pavement as its jaw relaxed. It was the largest wolf she had ever seen, even crouched, and when its head swung back in their direction, its eyes as red as the blood staining the throat of the white wolf looking for them, Keiko took several steps back, keeping herself between Masanori and it.

“Neesan?” Masanori's voice was low and terrified, he must have shifted back, she'd never heard a tone like that from him before. Her ears went back, fur along the ridge of her spine rising as she began to growl – she was still bleeding from where the white wolf had taken a chunk out of her haunch, but she would stand her ground to protect her brother.

She had no idea what else to do.

After a long moment, Masayoshi's phone rang again.